French "Octopus" at the Theater. Mossovet

Festival dance

The 14th New European Theater (NET) festival opened in Moscow with the dance performance "Octopus" by the Frenchman Philippe Decouflé and his company. According to TATYANA KUZNETSOVA, the discovery turned out to be life-affirming.

Philippe Decoufle is a clown by first training. It was then that he changed his orientation: he went to study with the magician of the dance scene - the American avant-garde artist Alvin Nicolai, who introduced French enthusiasts to modern dance (in those days, very few in number). And only then did he become one of the pillars of the French choreographic “new wave”, distinguished by its intellectuality and special diversity. And later he began staging mega-spectacles for thousands of people - such as the opening of the Olympic Games, the World Cup or the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. And even later he enriched the programs of the famous Parisian “horses” - the Crazy Horse cabaret with his choreographic gift. But under all life and creative circumstances, deep down he remained a clown, adoring risky jokes, optical illusions, all kinds of curiosities and completely physical beauty. For this lightness and riot of fantasy, he is adored in France, and beyond its borders - the Rabelaisian spirit (not in the sense of gluttony, but in the sense of glorification of the flesh) in Decouflé’s production is distinct and extremely charming.

He and his company came to Russia back in the last century, but the powerful stream of outstanding touring performers that has poured into us over the past 15 years has not yet washed away from the memory the vivid images of that visit: funny little men dancing in flippers, and outlandish creatures with multi-meter tentacles limbs.

In "Octopus", named after the number of dancers and the number of stages into which the performance is divided, the choreographer frolics not as serenely as before. Now he plays pranks like a child, ironizing about everything - from religion to philosophy. And these are the best fragments of the performance, because Philippe Decouflé is not so strong in terms of choreography: you shouldn’t expect originality of style or unprecedented combinations from him - it’s good if he avoids banalities. However, even such commonplaces as a dancer’s solo in a circle of light, revealing the abysses of eroticism in the simplest bends, bends and other “stretches”; like an almost naked handsome black man and a topless white woman, suspended from the grate and languidly writhing in rope fetters; like a coven of extras around a table, parodying Bezharov’s “Bolero” - they don’t look vulgar, because they are permeated with the sober self-irony of a master who knows how to work to order.

The choreographer’s Rabelaisianism (it’s not for nothing that the performance was awarded the notorious “+18”) is expressed not in the abundance of nudity, but in the ability to present the most seemingly innocent manifestations of physicality from a sharp perspective. One of the most erotic episodes (so much so that what was happening on stage is completely excluded from view) was a video projected onto the backdrop with the play of two gigantic female tongues: the aggressive long one strove to reach the round one and the soft one, which timidly hid in the lips, as soon as the sharp sting appeared in dangerous proximity. From the same embarrassingly hypocritical series (only the visual provocation is replaced by an auditory one) is the announced recipe for the “nun fart” pie, whose piquancy is associated with the timely release of gases by the clergy.

Pathetic pseudo-philosophical verbiage is dedicated to the monologue of a dancer with six arms and six legs sitting on a table (the owners of additional limbs are hiding behind her back): moving them in the manner of Indian gods, the exalted lady carries inspired gobbledygook about a “megawoman” flying on a “megachair” in “megaspace” ", full of "mega-sensuality". The monologue ends with a cry about “megaorgasm” and “megasperm” fertilizing the universe, after which the speaker’s ecstasy instantly fades away and she leaves, proudly flashing her naked “mega-ass.”

Stringing together disparate episodes, Philippe Decoufle risked remaining just the author of plastic and visual sketches - successful and not very successful, if his mosaic had not been cemented by the wonderful musician Pierre Le Bourgeois and the polyphonic (from the Whitney-Houston mezzo to the hoarse Armstrong bass) vocalist Nosfel, who together created in the orchestral there is such sound abundance in the pit that it seemed like at least an octet was hidden there - since eight turned out to be a lucky number for the performance, which sold out the theater. He received the Moscow City Council with a sort of rapturous howl.

Eight without any halves